Norm MacDonald: ‘Liberace was not gay’

In a series of now-deleted tweets, Norm MacDonald criticized Steven Soderbergh’s Behind the Candelabra for portraying Liberace as a gay man. Yes, that Liberace. He deleted all of these tweets, presumably because he was worried they’d get him in trouble, and I hope I don’t get him in trouble by reposting them, but I thought he raised an interesting point.

Basically, Liberace publicly denied being gay his entire life, even going so far as winning libel suits against magazines who implied that he was gay. Behind the Candelabra was based on the autobiography of Scott Thorson, who claimed to be Liberace’s long-time lover, and almost certainly was, but who also, by almost all accounts, is a less than reliable narrator, being fanciful and a drug addict and having various axes to grind (here’s a recent New York Times profile on him). Point being, it’s easy to look at Liberace prancing around in a bejeweled fur cape and go, “Yeah, of course he’s gay,” but maybe that’s unfair. If you’ve had sex with people of both genders, as many gay people have, you do sort of get to choose your own label, gay, straight, or bi. Right or wrong, it’s interesting that we don’t respect that right as much when it’s a person having gay sex saying they’re straight.

The popular assumption is that Liberace was only closeted because he was worried about the homophobic backlash hurting his career. But at the same time, as Norm seems to be pointing out, if we’re really moving towards a world where a person is allowed to define his or her own sexuality, should we really be so dismissive of a guy who said he was straight a million times just because he seemed super gay? It is kind of like putting words in his mouth. I don’t necessarily agree that making a biopic based on a spurned lover’s account makes it an “odious motion picture,” but I don’t think you can just dismiss this as Norm being crazy either. I mean, he is kind of crazy, but he raises an interesting question about who gets to define a person’s sexuality. Me, I let all the satisfied babes do the talkin’, but not everyone has that option.

Wow. It really never ceases to amaze me how many people fall for Norm MacDonald’s twitter account and think he’s serious and get all butthurt about the things he posts. In the game of Twitter, Norm’s playing Global ThermoNuclear War, and you’re all playing finger paints.

I actually agree with you. I was following this as it was happening Saturday night and I was convinced he was just trolling people into agreeing with him and saying that Liberace was straight. He was RT’in everyone who agreed with him and I think he was just pranking people.

It’s not always easy to tell with him. Though now that he’s deleted everything I’m starting worry I might be wrong and he was serious about all of it.

Vince is pointing out that Norm’s tweets — intentionally or not — raise a discussion on how we identify people as gay or straight and why we do so. Tom Cruise is widely speculated as gay without really showing any stereotypical gay traits. And then there’s people like Trey Parker who has a ton of tallies in the gay column but his sexuality has never been questioned. Or someone like Michael Jackson who has always had gay accusations that never seemed to gain any traction, yet Liberace’s career has been more or less defined by such.

Agree. I kinda feel like at this point quantity of sh*ts given to whether or not a celebrity is gay should be equal to the quantity given as to whether or not someone is a nerd. Which is zero. Zero sh*ts. Just like the stuff you like, and if that stuff is sometimes 7-on-7 all-male bonefests, more power to ya buddy.

It’s the weird but true point that’s raised in this article. If we’re going to say people’s sexuality is what they determine it is, Funke isn’t gay. For a counter-example, imagine the outrage over a hypothetical story where someone states that Jason Collins “doesn’t have to be gay” because he had a fiance whom he slept with.

There is “0” evidence of Liberace being homosexual/gay. He was once engaged to actress Joanne Rio & frequently dated countless other women; not men! He testified (under oath) & denied being homosexual (or ever taken part in homosexual practices) in a 1956 defamation trial against the Daily Mirror. He further won a libel suit (1957) against Confidential Magazine for publishing a malicious article alluding to him being a homosexual. Liberace was not gay!!!